A rebellion over "No Child Left Behind" has begun, and the starting point is Idaho. Many states say they need emergency relief from the controversial education law's requirements, or a huge number of decent schools will face sanctions. Idaho says it will just ignore the law this year.

Under No Child Left Behind, Idaho is supposed to identify a growing number of schools as failing because they can't get enough students to pass a state test.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said he would grant waivers to states that could not meet the standards of No Child Left Behind.
Julio Cortez/AP
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Julio Cortez/AP

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said he would grant waivers to states that could not meet the standards of No Child Left Behind.

Julio Cortez/AP

Idaho schools superintendent Tom Luna says he just won't do it.

"We're not going to identify more schools as 'needs improvement,' because that is not the correct way to identify them," Luna says.

Every year, the law's targets keep rising, Luna says. Many schools that have made great strides in improving achievement still fall below that bar as it floats upward. Congress was expected to make adjustments, to give schools credit for their progress. But Luna says that in Washington, D.C., the law has become a political football in a gridlocked Congress, "and we're not going to be a pawn in those games."

Now, technically, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan could punish Idaho if the state refuses to obey the law. But Duncan may have encouraged this reaction by announcing recently that he would grant waivers to states that could not meet the law's standards. Duncan said he had no choice because Congress has failed to renew the law.

What Duncan probably had in mind was the reaction from Kentucky: Rather than rebelling, state Education Commissioner Terry Holliday is respectfully asking Duncan to cut him some slack. But he's proposing to give something in return.

In exchange for permission to break some of the law's requirements, Holliday says, he's ready to add some new elements to his state's plan for evaluating students. "We're adding two components: growth over time, down to the student level; and college and career readiness. Both of those were a focus of the president's and the secretary's blueprint," Holliday says. In other words, students will be judged by whether their test scores are steadily improving and whether they are ready for college or a job.

We're not going to identify more schools as 'needs improvement,' because that is not the correct way to identify them.

Tom Luna, Idaho schools superintendent

As Holliday notes, those are measures that have a seal of approval from the administration already, so it should improve Kentucky's chances of getting a waiver. Without the waiver, Holliday says, 85 percent of the state's school districts will be labeled as in need of improvement.

Not everyone thinks the law should be changed because schools can't meet its standards.

Sandy Kress, who helped push No Child Left Behind through Congress during the Bush administration, says he is worried that these efforts will cover up education failures. Kress, who is now with a Texas law firm, says a key tenet of the law is that schools cannot ignore performance among low-income kids, minority students and the disabled.

"That is to say that no school is let off the hook, if those students are falling by the wayside. Why should we compromise on that?" Kress says.

And that's the question some are asking — whether the latest controversy about No Child Left Behind is part of a genuine effort to spur needed reforms or whether it's really an admission that higher standards really are out of reach for some students.

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Clarification June 29, 2011

Our story implied that Idaho was the first state to refuse to comply with No Child Left Behind. Actually, Montana sent a letter to the Education Department in April, announcing that state would not be raising its NCLB requirements. That letter preceded Idaho's announcement.